Banana, peanut butter & chocolate chip muffins

These banana, peanut butter and chocolate chip muffins are a great way to use up over ripe bananas. I had two bananas left in the fruit bowl that failed the inspection from my minis – too brown and too spotty. “Yuk” there was no way they were going to eat those! ….or so they thought!

I can never bring myself to throw away over ripe bananas – there is almost always something you can make with them; pancakes, ice cream, smoothies, banana bread – or just put them in the freezer until you need them. They freeze really well sliced or whole (the skins turns black but the fruit will be fine).

Plain banana muffins are good, but the addition of peanut butter and chocolate chips make these muffins extra special. Banana, peanut butter and chocolate is a gorgeous combination of flavours and any cake with chocolate chips in is a winner with my minis! These muffins are really quick and easy to make, which makes it a fun activity to get little ones involved in. I used crunchy peanut butter as I like the extra crunch in the cake but you could you smooth peanut butter if you prefer or are worried about the size of the peanut chunks with very little ones.

For the muffins (makes 12):

230g self-raising flour

100g golden granulated sugar

50g margarine

50g peanut butter

50g milk chocolate chips

2 ripe bananas

2 eggs

1tsp baking powder

First we preheated the oven to 160c (gas mark 4) and Little Mini mashed the two bananas in a mixing bowl with a fork.

Next we added the sugar, margarine, peanut butter and eggs and whisked all the ingredients using an electric hand whisk. We then added the flour and baking powder and whisked again until the mix was nice and smooth. We stirred in the chocolate chips and then divided the mix between 12 muffin cases.

We baked them in the oven for around 25 mins – until they had risen and had turned a lovely golden colour. I sprinkled some golden granulated sugar on top of the muffins five minutes before taking them out of the oven, but this was just for decoration and totally optional.

I find it so satisfying creating something so delicious from ingredients that would otherwise be wasted. I feel like I’ve done a good deed by saving those two sad little bananas from the bin and I have also earned a few ‘mummy points’ from my minis! Win – win!

If you want to get your minis more involved in baking, take a look at my flower pot cupcakes for a fun baking activity and great gift idea.